She was brave, and cunning, and would stop at nothing to exact revenge against her territory’s overlords. The queen was not content to fade into obscurity as a disenfranchised colonial subject. And while ancient sources have conflicting accounts of what, exactly, caused the murderous persecution of the Iceni upon the death of the king, they are in agreement about several prominent features of the queen. The king’s wife, surely traumatized at the Roman assault on her family and her kingdom, survived. Prominent tribesmen of the Iceni had their estates taken. His wife was tied up and whipped, and his daughters were raped. When the king died, Prasutagus’ lands and his personal property were pillaged, and his entire estate was confiscated. It was a diplomatic plan – one designed to placate the colonizer and at the same time pay deference to the colonized – to bow under the yoke of imperial oppression and simultaneously maintain the indigenous power structure that predated Roman rule. In his will, Prasutagus had specified that when he died, half of his money would go to the emperor of Rome, and the other half would be given to his two daughters. Prasutagus ruled over a formidable tribe called the Iceni. In this part of Britannia, a cloudy and often foggy stretch of lowlands, often drizzled with rain from the North Sea – near the modern day city of Norwich, a great crime had been committed against a king called Prasutagus. And in the eastern reaches of the newly conquered province of Britiannia, trouble was brewing.

John Opie's Boudica Haranguing the Britains (1793).

Works of Seneca the Younger by Seneca